BBC News 24

Today Matthew's off ill, Jane is on her own. Jon is abroad, Ben is abroad. So common sense dictates Tim will be on for most of today/tonight again.

My feeling is that if they are struggling for male presenters - Tim is clearly stretched to the limit, given increasing appearances on World in between the News 24 marathons that he does - they need to bring Chris Eakin forward and get female cover on that single headed shift. Or consider bringing in Nick Owen and getting female relief on his Sunday morning. There's also Tony Campion, missing in action recently. Charlie Stayt is another, but I assume he is now tied to Breakfast now Dermot has left.

Tim is underappreciated, but a hard worker and a top performer. But there's only so much he can do, and only so many overnights in TVC sleeping under the desk in the newsroom he can take, surely!

The loss of Julian Worricker (who was excellent) is being felt perhaps?

No Tim yet, Nick is doing the 2-5 with Martine. I'd assumed he'd be doing the 6 again, but it's good that we should only get Tim on a single shift now.

I wonder if they're considering giving Gavin Estler an increased presence on the channel again, or would that be seen as a step down for him? Otherwise maybe they should punt on someone like Jon Kay to avoid Wilcox overdose, he could be a decent presenter I'd say.

If they're looking for ideas for males to do cover on News 24, I'd suggest Allan Little - he's proved very capable when he's presented have your say on BBC World/Service Radio and online.

Don't bring back Gavin Hewitt, though. Goodness no.

Yeah he'd be good, he used to occasionally present Points West when he was there. Of course he is based in Bristol though.

Rajesh Mirchandani was good when he had a go last year, but now he's in Washington, so that's no use. Jonathan Charles is good too, but he has to cover World as well as reporting, and I was impressed by Matt Barbett on Breakfast but now he's at Five. Surely News 24 could go for someone off Sky though. Martin Stanford, Allan King and Martin Popplewell aren't used that often so surely the BBC could tempt one of them away to provide cover for News 24, and they'd also be potential replacements for Sissons when he retires.

Why is there a need to send presenters out to cover stories which aren't going to get a dedicated programme? Why does Ben Brown have to go all the way to Nairobi when surely the standard reporter could get the same information? It seems silly to me to send out the presenters to do reports and OBs when there are reporters there already.

If presenters went sent out to any big news story perhaps some of the presenting gap would be filled.

Perhaps someone could say whether Ben Brown is doing a lot for BBC World from Nairobi that isn't being simulcast on N24.

If not I suspect it's a case of BBC overplanning bearing in mind how much more ugly it could have been quicker, than it's become to date.

I think I read somewhere that although Martin Stanford isn't 'used' for presenting he does other work around Sky News i.e. editorial stuff???

As I said yesterday, the BBC has lots of outlets to cater for:

BBC One
BBC News 24
BBC World
BBC Radio News
BBC Radio 5 Live
BBC World Service
BBC News Online

With bulletins on the hour on all of those television and radio stations, the BBC needs more than one correspondent for such a major story.

He has always struck me as someone who may have more than a presentation role in their technology coverage. Could be he produces as well as presents?